Conducting Quality Evaluations: Four Generations of Meta-Evaluation

Abstract

At the end of the 1960s, Michael Scriven coined the concept of meta-evaluation. In the strictest sense of the term, a meta-evaluation is the evaluation of an evaluation. From a theoretical point of view, it can be used to assess the value of one or more evaluations. In a practical sense, it helps the planning of evaluations. Thanks to its increasingly widespread use, meta-evaluation has emerged as a method of quality assurance for evaluations. To meet the requirement for quality, more and more summative and formative meta-evaluations have been conducted and published over the last twenty years by both evaluators and scholars. This article includes a theoretical overview of meta-evaluation and reviews its foundations, methods, practices, and objects.